Category: History

The shadow of sectarianism loomed large this summer, as the annual Orange Order marches drew criticism and outrage. In Belfast and other parts of the North of Ireland, loyalist mobs clashed with police and intimidated nationalist communities when bonfires were removed on safety grounds. In Scotland, a Catholic priest was spat on by a passing Orange parade.

With the recent announcement of the engagement of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle and the upcoming wedding, we call not for celebration of but the abolition of the monarchy. The royal family is a feudal relic and symbol of national chauvinism which, along with the House of Lords, reveals what our so-called ‘democracy’ really is – a system designed and run to serve the interests of the ruling class. The monarchy is a drain on the public purse, receiving handouts of £35.7 million per year on top of countless other expenses. The upcoming royal wedding is an excellent example of this. While the royal family will pay for the wedding ceremony, reception etc., the taxpayer will foot the bill for the policing, security costs and public order arrangements around the event. Kate and William’s 2011 wedding saw £15 million spent of policing alone, with 5000 officers deployed. This time we can expect the same arrangements, if not even greater measures following the recent increase in terrorist attacks.

A century ago, on 6th February 1918, the historic Representation of the People Act was passed. Importantly, the 1918 Act allowed 8.4 million women and 5.6 million men in Britain to vote for the very first time. As Marxists, it is important to examine the victories – and shortcomings – of one of the first steps towards universal suffrage.

by Michael Allan

The 1st of February this year marks the 5-year anniversary of the beginning of the Hetherington Occupation at Glasgow University. Coming in the midst of the militant 2010-11 UK-wide student movement against fees and cuts, it marked a peak in political activity on campus and served as a rallying call to thousands of students across the UK. What lessons can we take from this?Continue reading “The Hetherington Occupation: Memories and Lessons for The Student Movement”→

Today the name Robert Burns is associated primarily with food and festivity. His poems have become party pieces and his individual Scottish identity in literary history has been skewed to the extent that he has now come to be valued by many only as a Scot and not as a great universal voice for people of all countries. Burns has become for many the ideal Scot; someone any true Scottish person should appreciate, and he is now appreciated precisely for his Scottishness far more than for the political and philosophical value of his poetry. Many critics and historians would have us believe that Burns was a bourgeois nationalist. On the contrary, Burns believed in the international unity of working people against their oppressors.

Burns was born into a family of poor tenant farmers. The farm his family worked on would provide enough to scrape through each year provided every family member worked as long and hard as they could. Burns’s upbringing was one of hard labour and little leisure. His early teenage poems, written in his own Scots dialect, reflect the life he lived and are concerned only with the people and places he knew, not, as with popular contemporary poets, the triumphs of mythological heroes or the achievements of great classical civilisations. For Burns, poetry was not work, but a way of understanding life and of comprehending the beauties and evils he saw around him. In his life of labour and poetry, Burns came to develop philosophical understandings of the world around him. His poem ‘To a Mouse’ Shows this:

This is of course the most famous example of Burns’s unique poetic understanding of life and humanity. The sympathy he has for the mouse whose house he has turned up while ploughing the field is developed into a reflection on his own lowly position and the now ‘broken union’ between living things. Whilst this poem is undoubtedly famous for its unique handling of Scots, its incredibly important and valuable message of compassion and unity is often ignored.

Burns lived through the time of the French Revolution of 1789. The events of the revolution and the philosophical ideas that had influenced it had an effect all across Europe. All of a sudden it seemed that the entire political establishment of the civilised world was being put into question. Through a development of consciousness, mankind could completely alter the shape of society. Those who benefited from the old regime didn’t stand a chance. For the bourgeoisie, the revolution was a step forward in the establishment of capitalism and the withering away of the powers held by church and nobility. But for the generation of thinkers Burns belonged to, the revolution was a display of the power held by the masses, and an example of how philosophical ideas could manifest themselves in revolutionary action. Unlike the slightly later romantic poets, who praised the revolution from their perspective as classically trained scholars, seeing it in comparison to the great achievements of classical civilisation, Burns instead saw the revolution from the perspective of the oppressed masses. As a poor worker himself, Burns saw poetry not in the efforts of the great lawyers and politicians of the revolution, but in the mass of revolutionary workers, who defended their demands of liberty, equality and fraternity, even after the bourgeoisie established their rule over France. His poem ‘The Tree of Liberty’ reflects the mood the revolution inspired in him:

‘For Freedom, standing by the tree,
Her sons did loudly ca’, man.
She sang a sang o’ liberty,
Which pleased them ane and a’, man.
By her inspired, the new-born race
Soon drew the avenging steel, man;
The hirelings ran——–her foes gied chase,
And banged the despot weel, man.’

The ideals of the revolution were those that Burns naturally harboured as a working man. He had confidence in the working class and hope that the legacy of the revolution would continue and that the fight for equality would never cease. Burns’s social consciousness and faith in humanity are reflected in his poem ‘A Man’s a Man for a’ That’, a poem that focusses on the divide between rich and poor and the need for systematic change across the world. the final stanza goes:

Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a’ that,
That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth
Shall bear the gree an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, an’ a’ that,
It’s comin yet for a’ that,
That Man to Man the warld o’er
Shall brithers be for a’ that.

Burns’s meditation on poor folk and their worthiness as human beings comes to a firm conclusion in this passage. Though the poor are beaten up and torn apart by the system, they will undoubtedly band together across all countries in realising their ‘Sense and Worth’ over the world. Burns was not a widely travelled man, but he was aware that the world was not limited to Britain, and that all over the planet there were other human being facing the same problems of poverty while the rich lived in luxury. Burns was a believer in mankind, and this is something invaluable to anyone wishing to understand and learn from him.
​
The poetry of Burns has lasted the test of time because what he had to say remains highly relevant. We live in a world of class oppression, where people are violent towards each other. It’s clear there is a need for systematic change, and that capitalism is the problem. The world Burns imagined is not an impossible ideal, but the destiny of mankind. Burns understood that the poor, conscious of their own power in the world, would inevitably band together in revolutionary action. And so this Burns’ Night we should truly carry on the legacy of Burns and look to the future rather than the past.

The highland clearances was a huge event in Scottish history, fundamentally changing class relations forever, and breaking the last remaining ties to the feudal system. However, this was not being carried out by a revolutionary class; rather it was the old landowning class becoming absorbed into the new British bourgeoisie. It resulted in the end of the clanship society, as well as migration, both nationally and internationally.

What were the Highland Clearances?

The highland clearances were a series of mass evictions from the highlands carried out from 1760 – 1860. They were carried out by the landowning class, who were trying to make their land more profitable through moving people to make way for large-scale sheep farming and through forcing their tenants to give up subsistence farming and instead become part-time crofters and part-time fishermen or kelpers. The clearances themselves occurred in three main stages.

The first stage happened from around 1760 to 1815, where the landowning class forced their tenants to move off the land their families had lived on for generations and to move to the coast. They were moved into crofting communities, where they were given a small piece of land, which would not be enough to survive on. This forced the crofters to take up fishing and kelping. The landlords did this in search of profit – clearing people freed up more land for sheep, which was a very profitable business at the time. The crofting system was arranged so that the crofters would have to fish or collect kelp, a kind of seaweed which at the time was very valuable because it couldn’t be imported (due to the Napoleonic War). While this new system resulted in large profits for the landlords, it was very exploitative for the crofters, and many left instead of struggling to make a living on the crofts. However, this was not at all in the interests of the landowning class, who passed the Passenger’s Vessels’ Act in 1803, which raised the price of a ticket to Canada from £3 to over £10, an amount that no ordinary crofter would be able to afford, in an attempt to stop so many people leaving.

However, this all changed in 1815, with the end of the Napoleonic War. Not only did the price of kelp plummet but the whole Scottish economy went into recession. The only industry that remained profitable was the sheep market. The crofters suffered greatly, they were living on very little land, built to only sustain half an income. Yet due to the collapse of kelp, this was their only income. We see a bigger population than ever in the highlands, due to the Passenger Vessels’ Act and improvements in medicine, however they are living on less land than ever, as the land they used to live on was now inhabited by sheep. This resulted in a very low standard of living and an over-reliance on the potato.

Then, in 1846, blight comes to Scotland, resulting in the Highland Potato Famine. In 1846, crops failed in around ¾ of crofting villages, which was catastrophic, as people were dependant on the potato, as kelp and other industries barley contributed to the crofter’s income. Church records show that around 200,000 people were at risk of starving. However, widespread starvation was largely averted, due to an aid effort, providing the crofter’s with food and tickets to Canada and America. Blight continued to affect the potatoes up to 1857, however after 1850 aid had largely stopped as the crofters were victimised and their own ‘laziness’ blamed for the famine. As this aid dried up, people were left with no way to make a living, resulting in mass migration abroad and to the lowlands.

What were the causes?

The fundamental cause of the highland clearances was the change in class relations, as Britain moved from a feudal to a capitalist society.

Previously people in the highlands lived in a clanship society. Most people were subsistence farmers who lived in clans; where a chief would protected them from raids and in return they would have to fight when the chief called up the clan. This relationship was not as exploitive as feudalism was in other countries, yet it was still a feudal relationship. However, this clanship system had been in decline since the 1600s, due to commercialisation. The highlands started to be integrated into the monetary economy with cattle being driven down to sell in Edinburgh. This increased throughout the 17th century, as the highlands became a place where commodities such as fish, deer, salt and wool were harvested to supply to the rest of the UK.

The driver of this commercialisation was the integration of the clan chiefs into the British bourgeoisie. This really began in 1609 when the Statutes of Iona were passed, making it law that the first born son of every clan chief had to be educated in a Protestant, English speaking school in Edinburgh. This fundamentally broke the relationship of chief and clansmen, as the chiefs moved off their land and down to Edinburgh, where they became integrated into the British bourgeoisie. By the 1700s the chiefs were all living in Edinburgh and London, no longer on their lands fulfilling their traditional roles and duties. There was also a change in how they viewed themselves, no longer as chiefs, with a duty to protect their clansmen, but as commercial landlords. With this integration into the new British establishment, they absorbed the idea of ‘improvement’, of making your land more profitable. This importance placed on profit resulted in the chiefs relocating the people so they would have land to farm sheep on, and also led them to use their money to buy capital and invest in industry. Ultimately, they were leaving their roles as traditional feudal chiefs and becoming capitalists.

There was also a change in how the highlands were viewed by the British establishment. In the early 1600s, the highlands was viewed as a sort of colony at home, an area that should be used to extract resources for the rest of the UK, but that could be left in its own clanship system. However, this changed with the Jacobite risings, especially that of 1745 where a large proportion of the Jacobite army was made up of highlanders. Showing that they were opposed to this new elite, highlighted that the highlanders could be a threat to the new ruling class. This resulted in large scale repression in 1746 with traditional clothing, music and the Gaelic language being banned. The idea was that this traditional society was dangerous and could not be left as it was, but needed to be integrated into a British nationality, and into capitalist society.

What were the consequences?

There was resistance by the crofters, in what is known as the Crofter’s War, which took place in the 1870s and the 1880s. This mostly took the form of riots and battles with landlords and the police, in response to rent racking, where the chiefs-turned landlords would raise the rent year on year, beyond what the crofter’s could afford. Inspired by the Land League in Ireland, their demands were the three Fs – fair rent, fixity of tenure and freedom of sale. Crucially they were not calling for a return to subsistence living and re-instatement of the clan relations; rather they were trying to limit their exploitation in the new commercial society. Their demands were largely met in the Crofter’s Holding Act of 1886.

As has been previously mentioned, the main consequence of the Highland Clearances was the end of feudal relations. The chief-clansman relation based on war and protection had changed to a commercial relationship between landlords and tenants. Land becomes something that was owned, bought and sold. The clanship system was also destroyed, and with it much of highland culture. Many aspects of culture and language were repressed, as they excluded the new anglicised elites and rejected a British identity which was dangerous, both militarily to the bourgeoisie and to the formation of a British national market.

Another consequence was mass emigration, especially to Canada and the USA. In Cape Breton alone 30,000 highland Scots arrived between 1775 and 1850. Many highlanders were given land grants in the USA after fighting in the 7 years’ war and the American Revolutionary war, and brought their families over to live with them. There was also significant migration to the lowlands. Seasonal migration continued and increased, but more importantly there was permanent migration; even by 1835 there were 20,000 highlanders living in Glasgow. This, combined with Irish immigration provided the concentrated labour in the cities that was needed for the creation of capitalist society.
​
The highland clearances changed Scotland forever. The clanship system of society broke down and was replaced by capitalism. The old clan chiefs themselves became part of the bourgeoisie as they merged into the British elite and became commercial landlords. A huge number of people were displaced, some of who emigrated abroad, while others moved to the lowlands where they became the industrial proletariat.

s we reach the first anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum of September 2014 it is important to reflect on the events of the referendum itself, what has happened over the past year and how we can move forward.

The referendum was undoubtedly a political earthquake in Scotland and more broadly Britain. With an 85% turnout the referendum saw the biggest participation at any vote in Britain since the introduction of universal suffrage; and this turnout was reflective of the thousands of people brought into politics for the first time. Particularly in the summer just weeks prior to the vote itself “Yes” stalls were to be seen on streets across towns in Scotland. Just days before Scotland went to the polls Glasgow city centre was filled with “Yes” rallies made up of thousands of workers and youth looking to fundamentally change society.
For the first time many people felt they were taking part in a politics that actually mattered, something that could actually make a difference to their lives. This was reflected in voting patterns which saw the youngest group – 16 and 17 year olds who were allowed to vote for the first time – having by far the largest percentage of “Yes” voters at 71%. The four council areas that had a majority “Yes” vote – Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, North Lanarkshire and Dundee – are also traditionally industrialised areas that have since suffered from de-industrialisation and accompanying levels of high unemployment and poverty. It should also be noted that all of these areas were at one time Labour strongholds, and this was the case up until very recently for all apart from Dundee.

Overall 45% of people voted in favour of independence. The sigh of relief from the British establishment was audible as their worst fears failed to materialise. Whilst 45%-55% may sound like a fairly large margin, it is important to analyse the context of the referendum. Up until the summer months of 2014 the “No” vote was comfortably ahead, in the vast majority of polls “Yes” failed to get above 37% until August 2014. It is therefore in some ways unsurprising that up until summer 2014 the Better Together campaign seemed to be doing relatively little; only upon “Yes” creeping up in the polls – and particularly after the YouGov poll showing “Yes” ahead in early September – did (mostly) Labour MPs begin to descend upon Scotland.

In addition to “No” being ahead for such a long time, we should also consider the power of the British establishment and the fear mongering it carried out. Whilst Better Together seemed fairly thin on the ground, the activity it did engage in seemed to be purely based around negativity and playing on anxieties around an independent Scotland. Primary points included scares around pensions, job cuts, increasing prices, currency and the finite supply of North Sea oil. This fear mongering was continually churned out by the majority of the bourgeois press, which backed the Better Together campaign.

How then did the “Yes” vote pull ahead, especially against this backdrop? Fundamentally the impact of the 2008 economic crisis and the resulting austerity cannot be underestimated. Since 2008 internationally the working class has experienced capitalism at the sharp end with growing unemployment, poverty and inequality. This has only been compounded with the bankers, who played the leading role in the crisis, having been rewarded with growing bonuses whilst the working class have been expected to shoulder the crisis with huge cuts to public services and have experienced the longest fall in real wages since the 19th century. In response to this there has been seething frustration and anger amongst workers and young people that for a long time failed to fully show itself in Britain. Through the referendum this frustration found an avenue to express itself. The “Yes” campaign, as opposed to Better Together, put emphasis on change and a fairer more social democratic society with slogans such as “Bairns not Bombs” and “NHYes”. The difference can particularly be seen in the second debate between Alex Salmond and Alastair Darling on 25th August 2014 (after which the spike for “Yes” in the polls began). Whereas Darling continued the standard Better Together fear mongering, Salmond placed his emphasis on an independent Scotland being opposed to the austerity and foodbanks of ConDem Britain.

In the year since the referendum this sense of frustration and need for change has continued to be expressed in Scotland. The general election of May was of course a huge part of this, indeed it can be seen as a tremor coming from the referendum. The Labour Party had been on something of a downward trajectory in Scotland since the 2007 Holyrood election which saw the SNP take power for the first time (this was then consolidated into a majority in 2011). This can largely be related to their lacklustre policies such as “carry a knife, go to jail” whereas the SNP had by this point moved to a more social democratic position with their lead policies being ending prescription charges and tuition fees for Scottish university students. However, at general election level the Labour party had maintained their dominance with 41 seats out of 59 in 2010, compared to 6 for the SNP.

In 2015 this of course all changed. The huge popularity of the SNP was obvious after the referendum as they climbed to over 100,000 members in a country with a population 5,000,000. Meanwhile Labour were more reviled than ever before for the part they had played in the Better Together campaign. Whilst the ever popular Nicola Sturgeon took over the SNP leadership the Labour Party turned to arch Blairite Jim Murphy to solve their woes. Going into the election Sturgeon chose not to emphasise independence but put her party forward as the anti-austerity option – this proved very popular, to the extent that after the first televised leaders’ debate “can I vote SNP in England” became one of the top google searches. As opposed to this Labour carried a mish-mash of policies with progressive ideas such as a non-dom tax and opposing zero hour contracts being accompanied by stern warnings that the party would continue the austerity proposed by the Tories as this was the only option.

Again there was huge media fear mongering around the SNP and their attempt to break up the union. Miliband was repeatedly questioned over whether he would consider coalition with the nationalists. Eventually he made the scandalous move of saying that he would rather let the Tories govern than go into coalition with the SNP due to the importance he placed on the union.It is fair to say that everyone (except Jim Murphy who said he would not lose a single seat to the SNP) expected Labour to lose and the SNP to gain, but the scale of defeat was hard to imagine. Labour were left with just 1 seat, equal with the Tories and Lib Dems, whilst the SNP won 56. Key party figures including Murphy himself and shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander lost their seats. Swings from Labour to SNP of over 20% were the norm whilst the largest was 39.3% in Glasgow North East. For the first time since 1906 Glasgow was left with no Labour MPs. This can be seen as a rejection of the Labour Party that had gotten into bed with the Tories for the Better Together campaign and for years taken Scottish votes for granted whilst giving little back to the electorate.

Since the election there have been yet more events in Scotland. Mhairi Black’s maiden speech with its references to Tony Benn, rejection of Tory austerity and understanding of why people have turned towards the SNP as an alternative has been viewed online over 10 million times. The SNP have voted against the Tory budget whilst the majority of Labour MPs only abstained. The Scottish Labour Party have had another leadership election with Jim Murphy eventually being forced to go despite his best efforts. Kezia Dugdale as new leader does not particularly suggest a new direction – she was Murphy’s deputy and has been firmly to the centre of the party – however the direction of the UK Labour Party and the possible election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader may impact.

On a broader scale the Jeremy Corbyn Labour leadership campaign is obviously of extreme importance to wider British politics. Hundreds of thousands of people have been brought into the Labour Party and indeed into politics – over 105,000 people have joined since the election and nearly 113,000 have registered as supporters – the majority in order to vote for Corbyn. As with Yes in the referendum many are seeing Corbyn with his anti-austerity, progressive, left politics as a chance for change. Meetings up and down the country have seen over 1000 attendees, with many not able to get into meeting rooms. This is yet another expression of the frustrations in society. In Scotland meetings were also well attended though membership figures have not increased at quite the same rate with a reported 3400 members having joined since the general election and 3300 having registered as supporters. This can perhaps be put down to the SNP currently occupying an anti-austerity position and the right-wing elements of the Labour Parliamentary Party – including those that are attempting to purge new members and the majority who failed to vote against the Tory budget.

Internationally the success of PODEMOS and other left parties at Spanish local elections has shown the frustration of workers and youth to be of a global nature. This was also reflected in the election of Syriza in Greece back in January. Elected on an anti-austerity programme Tsipras and co quickly stepped back from their programme and continued with major elements of the austerity demanded by the troika of lenders – the IMF, European Central Bank and the EU. However in the summer Greek exit from the Euro threatened as Syriza appeared to be unwilling to accept the austerity measures demanded from the Troika. In early July they were given a mandate to reject these measures by the Greek people through a referendum. In something of an incredible move, just days after the referendum took place, Tsipras signed virtually the same deal – a worse one, in fact. Since then he has stood down as Prime Minister, the left section of SYRIZA has split and new elections will take place this month.

The situation in Britain and internationally shows that the sentiments, frustrations and desire for change in Scotland are in line with those being expressed internationally. However, the situation in Greece is also cause for warning. Despite being elected on a left programme Syriza continued to carry out austerity and became stooges to the Troika. This is precisely because they were unwilling to break with capitalism and austerity is what is demanded by the bourgeoisie and its crisis. Capitalism is a system built on exploitation and convulsed by crises, the current one being the biggest since the 1930s.

You cannot control what you don’t own. Unlike the exceptional period of the post-war boom this is not one in which serious reforms can be won from the capitalists. In order for the change that was demanded in the referendum to be carried out we cannot rely on the SNP. The SNP is a party of contradiction. Whilst claiming to be anti-austerity at the general election it was carrying out austerity at local authority level, with a notable case being cuts to schools and hospitals in Dundee, and cuts to colleges have also been carried out by the Scottish Government. Along with expressions of fairness and social democracy, the SNP independence plan also included a cut in corporation tax.

For true change we need socialism – a fundamental break with capitalism and a taking of the major parts of the economy into the hands of workers. This way instead of being ran for profit they could be run for the good of society – there is plenty of money in the system, the problem is one of exploitation and distribution. As we have seen the sentiments in Scotland are reflective of the global working class and a socialist Scotland would be too isolated to work on its own. Therefore we must look to international solidarity with the global working class and towards a socialist world.

We publish here the introduction to a new pamphlet, produced by supporters of the International Marxist Tendency in Scotland, which looks at the inspiring history of the class struggle in Poland. With a large number of Polish workers in Britain, it is important for the labour movement to reach out to these workers and organise them in a united fight against capitalism.​
To order copies of this excellent new pamphlet, please contact: masy1917@gmail.com
​

​The history of Poland is an inspirational one, steeped with strikes, uprisings and revolutions. It is necessary to study the history of class struggle, not just out of interest, but in order to learn from the past: what went right; what went wrong; what to carry on doing; and what mistakes not to repeat. The history of the Polish working classes is a history rich with lessons.

Polish people make up the third largest foreign-born population in the UK. The 2011 census estimated around 579,000 Polish born citizens in the UK, but more recent unofficial surveys have estimated nearer a million. Where I live in Edinburgh, Poles make up the highest foreign born population, at around 13,000. With 2.9 million foreign-born workers in the UK, any successful revolutionary movement must involve them, and the Poles are no exception. In fact, as this pamphlet shows, the traditions of the Polish working classes can be a vital addition to future movements; but first of all these workers must be reached out to.

Socialism and Religion

The first excerpt is from a text by Polish revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg. Luxemburg is mostly known for her work in Germany, her heroic opposition to the First World War and her leading role in the German Revolution, which brought the war to an end; but she also played a big role in the movement in her country of origin.

Luxemburg had a remarkable understanding of the religious question. In her text “Socialism and The Churches” she said:
“Social-Democracy in no way fights against religious beliefs. On the contrary, it demands complete freedom of conscience for every individual and the widest possible toleration for every faith and every opinion. But, from the moment when the priests use the pulpit as a means of political struggle against the working classes, the workers must fight against the enemies of their rights and their liberation.”

A 2015 poll by the Polish Centre for Public Opinion Research found that 56% of Poles claimed they have never doubted their belief in God, so the demand for the complete freedom of religious belief for all is still extremely important in Poland. This must be carried out whilst also exposing the hypocrisy and reactionary nature of the structures of the church and the need for a materialist, as opposed to idealist, analysis when it comes to social, political and economic events. For this reason we would recommend the whole text which although 110 years old is still relevant today.

However, Luxemburg did make an error when it came to understanding the need to support the right of nations to determine their own future. The Polish workers were not just oppressed by their own ruling class, but also nationally oppressed by Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and of course the brutal Russian Czarist regime; for this reason the fight for national freedom was very important for Polish peasants and workers, something which was reflected on the political scene with parties such as the left nationalist PPS (Polska Partija Socialistyczna).

The PPS drew many genuine class fighters to its ranks, but had a strong Polish nationalist ideology which strove to split Polish and Russian workers, something which Luxemburg correctly stood against. When the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party adopted a policy supporting the right of nations like Poland to determine their own future, Luxemburg thought this was a capitulation towards Polish nationalism. However this was not the case. It was necessary to show that the Marxists, socialists and the workers movement in general, and particularly in an oppressor country like Russia, had no interest in oppressing Polish national culture and identity. Luxemburg underestimated the reactionary consequences that a forced political unity could cause and its potential to sharpen national divisions even further.

Luxemburg was a devout internationalist, an absolute necessity for revolutionaries, particularly in times of extreme chauvinism such as in the early years of the First World War. As her counterpart, Karl Liebknecht said, “The main enemy of every people is in their own country”. The main enemy of the Polish workers was and still is the Polish ruling class. Luxemburg consistently exposed the bankruptcy of the Polish bourgeois nationalists and the Polish capitalists who had no interest in the workers or small peasants, but were only interested in increasing their own share of the wealth created by the working masses.

World War Two and the Holocaust

The second article is from “The Militant”, the US newspaper of the Trotskyist Fourth International. It was written in 1944 on the Ghetto Uprising of 1943. It tells a story which could be described as a glimpse of light amidst a time of extreme darkness.

“In Lodz, the biggest Polish industrial center, 130,000 Jewish workers went on a general strike, halting temporarily the Nazi extermination drive there. Armed rebellions have flared up through all the labor camps.”

This sentence shows the tremendous power of the working classes even during times of the most extreme barbaric oppression. The following excerpt from S. Mendelsohn’s “The Battle of The Warsaw Ghetto” shows an appeal from the Polish Labor movement on the second day of the revolt.

“Workers and the working intelligentsia are the heart and soul among the masses of fighting Jews who arose gun in hand against Nazi atrocities. Almost all underground publications, as well as the reports of the government representative, speak of the Jewish Fighter Organization which began and led the struggle… both the appeal of the Polish Labor Movement and some newspapers indicate that the organization consisted chiefly of workers, most of them young.”

Understandably, the tragedy of the Holocaust can be difficult to bring political content and analysis to. However, the rise of fascism and the subsequent genocides were political phenomena inextricably linked to the crisis of capitalism and imperialism. The biggest and most serious attempt to halt this slaughter was the Ghetto Uprising, which was a working class led uprising from start to finish, a fact which should be proudly remembered and understood.

The third article, also from the US Militant, tells the story of the great Warsaw Uprising in 1944, which almost defeated the Nazis without the help of the Red Army. Whilst Marxists defend the Russian Revolution and the magnificent gains it made, we also ardently criticize the bureaucratic state of the USSR which, amidst the poverty, isolation and embargoes suffered by the country, degenerated into a monstrous corrupt bureaucratic caste, with interests very separate from the workers and peasants that originally carried out the revolution. The Stalinist betrayal of the Warsaw Uprising is an all too perfect example of this. The text contains quotes from Moscow at the time encouraging the insurrection, and then days later condemning it as a crime. The advance of the Red Army up to Warsaw was halted and arms for the partisans were denied, while thousands of Poles were left to be massacred.

The Moscow press and the Stalinist apologists at the time called the uprising premature and doomed to failure, but during the insurrection itself they actually reported the evacuation of Nazis from Warsaw and some sources even pointed towards workers councils being established in Warsaw factories. The Americans and British seeking a chance to gain influence over the Polish gave it “token aid”, but feeble amounts, weeks after the insurrection had started. In reality neither the Allied governments nor the USSR had the interest of the Polish masses at heart. A successful uprising in Poland would have been a tremendous example to workers and oppressed peoples all over. Whether living in the capitalist world or in the USSR, it would have shown people the power they held in their hands, and during the post-war worldwide revolutionary wave it could have marked the end of both capitalism and Stalinism. The capitalists and the Soviet bureaucrats were equally fearful.

Solidarnosc and Stalinism

The fourth article tells the phenomenal story of The Solidarnosc movement in 1980. The original strike of Shipyard Workers started with the victimisation of three workers in Gdansk and spread throughout Poland to involve hundreds of thousands of striking workers across all industries. Even layers of rural peasants and workers refused deals with the PLR government and sent free food to the strikers.

The strike contained many economic demands including increased wages, family allowances and pensions, but also democratic demands like freedom of press and speech, the release of political prisoners, and of course the right to strike. The mayor of Gdansk ordered the printing of hundreds of thousands of anti-Solidarnosc leaflets, but this was met by the print workers refusing to print them and coming out in full support of the strike.

What was significant was that at no point during this wave of strikes was the demand of returning to capitalism used. Many Polish workers will wince at the word “socialist” and even more so the words “Communist” or “Marxist”; but the truth is the PLR could not be described as any of the three things, as the author, Ted Grant, explains here.

“The corruption, the nepotism and the incapacity of the bureaucracy has become clear for all to see. A workers’ state can never be run on the basis of privilege and without the participation and management of both industry and state by the working class. As a result of the inefficiency of the bureaucracy there was an actual fall of 2% in production last year. So long as living standards were going up the workers would grit their teeth and tolerate the crimes and privileges of the bureaucracy. But now it has clearly landed Poland in political and economic crisis, the workers find this regime unbearable.”

The following paragraph showed quite aptly the situation at the time in Poland:

“In reality, the bureaucracy has been enormously weakened while the working class has been enormously strengthened, not only in numbers, but in its capacity of struggle, by the post-war industrialisation of Poland. Under such circumstances, a victory could easily be gained which would spread to the rest of Eastern Europe and to the Soviet Union; and also have a decisive effect on the capitalist states of the West. That is what the bureaucracy – and the ruling class in the capitalist west – fear, and it is this that the workers have to understand.”

Solidarnosc still exists as an important trade union but is very different to what it was. Like many mass revolutionary movements it degenerated when the masses left the scene, allowing the movement to be hijacked by pro-capitalist, anti-communist forces, and even by the Catholic Church. The article itself explains the beginnings of this degeneration. The movement lacked clarity in ideas and the leaders lacked confidence in its rank-and-file. The west cynically used it to smear the ideas of communism with the crimes and inefficiencies of Stalinism. But at the time, it was an earth trembling event that was felt by workers everywhere.

The fifth article was written by an Italian worker and member of the FGSI (Italian Socialist Youth Federation) interviewing factory workers in Naples.

“Poland has been a victory for all workers – for Italian workers too. No, wait, those aren’t just big words; I’ll explain what I mean. Before the events in Gdansk there were many intellectuals in Italy, who were playing with the idea of anti-strike laws. Now these intellectuals have all disappeared all of a sudden; who at this moment would dare to talk about limiting the right to strike after what the working class has just done in Poland? So it’s a victory for all of us. But watch out – those intellectuals will be back.”
Another worker saw the further problem which the Polish struggles had highlighted; “Our union is no good, our officials elect themselves from amongst themselves; what’s happened to control? All right so we talk about Poland, but let’s have a bit of democracy around here too.”

The final article describes events 35 years after the Solidarnosc movement, in early 2015, when miners in Silesia in Southern Poland struck against privatisation amidst a global capitalist crisis and a particularly big plummet in energy prices. In a country with a so called “pro-capitalist consensus”, 68% of the population backed the strike whilst only 15% took the side of the government. The first strike wave in early January was successful; the militant mood of the strikers pushed the more conservative minded union leaders to threaten a general strike, which made Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz back off and accept the union’s demands.

19 days after the strike, however, it kicked off again when ten miners from a non-striking mine who had organised a solidarity picket with the strikers were sacked. In response, demonstrations were held next to the company’s HQ in the city of Jastrzebie on the 2nd and 9th of February, where tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets were fired at unarmed protesters, injuring twenty people.

The sacking of miners taking solidarity strike action, followed by the use of brutal violence against the strikers, demonstrated just how worried the Polish state is by the potential power of the militant and organised working class. This is why the police were authorised to shoot at unarmed protestors.

Solidarity and Socialism

After this event, activists from the Scottish Socialist Party held a solidarity picket outside the Polish consulate in Edinburgh. Preparing for the picket was a revealing experience. Having leafleted almost all the shops and cafes on South Bridge, North Bridge and Leith Walk where many Polish workers are employed, we almost always encountered a positive response. One Polish barmaid smiled and said “I didn’t realise socialists did good things”; another chef said “Solidarność Towarzysz ” and laughed heartily. A waitress originally from Poznan said “Waw, I’ll put it up, my boss will take it down and tell me off but I don’t care, it’s about time”. I tried to persuade her not to risk her job but she was stubborn that it remained up.

Not all responses were positive. The weekend after the picket we were canvassing for Colin Fox (Edinburgh South SSP Parliamentary candidate). When knocking doors in a high rise block of flats in Moredun we met a Polish woman and told her about the picket. She said “good for you, but I came to Poland to get away from politics, I don’t have time” and slammed the door. This is to be expected. Although we are living in a time of increased radicalisation and politicisation, we cannot expect our message to reach everyone. It takes more than a leaflet or a pamphlet or even a solidarity picket to bring masses of people into political activity. It takes great events. As Trotsky said, the revolution takes place in people’s minds before it takes place on the streets. People can only take so much and they are forced to move and to fight. Strikes, demonstrations, and other sharp clashes of the working classes and the oppressed layers against the ruling classes and the state will bring masses of people into activity.

The workers will move when they are ready, not a second sooner, not a second later. The role of socialists and Marxists is to participate in the everyday class struggles, putting forward a socialist alternative and building a revolutionary organisation for when the masses of workers do finally move.

The brutal contradictions of capitalism that affect the consciousness of all workers and eventually drive masses of people into political activity are even more extreme for foreign-born workers. This paragraph from a TUC (Trade Union Congress) report shows very clearly how anti immigrant sentiments are fuelled by employers and the divisions exploited by them:

“The article reported on the outsourcing of staff, particularly housekeeping staff, in the sector and revealed how this is leading to a two-tier workforce in the sector, with a largely migrant workforce deployed through agencies and a diminishing in-house staff. The in-house staff are invariably on better pay rates and terms and conditions, but these are at risk due to the outsourcing and deployment of agency staff on far worse pay and conditions. This in itself provides a potential source of tension between the two groups of workers – a fact that unscrupulous employers are keen to exploit. The article also revealed a further form of exploitation, the requirement for staff to undertake ‘training’ or ‘inductions days’ without pay when they start their employment. Intimidation and easy dismissal of staff who complain is a feature of employment too and the poor working conditions and high levels of turnover make it difficult for trade unions to organise workers in the sector. The Guardian article reported the specific case of the Kensington Close Hotel, which under new ownership promptly outsourced its permanent housekeeping staff to employment agency Calibre International, while the newly transferred staff had wages protected under TUPE regulations, the 40 or so newly recruited agency maids (Polish, Lithuanian, Romanian and Mongolian workers) were being paid a piece rate of £2.08 per room, but this subsequently fell to £1.40 – £1.60 per room. As a result some workers were earning less than the minimum wage. Others were earning just £20 per day, while trainee maids worked up to three days ‘training’ without pay. This outsourcing had created a two-tier system with migrant workers on worse terms used to undermine existing terms and conditions. Longstanding members of the housekeeping staff at the Kensington Close hotel reported that they had not had a pay rise in almost five years and felt that tactics such as delayed implementation of paying revised national minimum wage rates were designed to ‘encourage’ them to leave so that they could be replaced by migrant agency workers on even worse terms and conditions.”

Since Poland’s 2004 entrance into the EU and the mass immigration to the UK, there have been efforts on the part of some trade unionists to organise this new layer of the working class. When Polish church-based community group Polski Bristol raised the problem that Polish people were having to pay taxes not just in the UK but also back in Poland, the South West TUC launched a campaign which pressured the governments of Poland and Britain to sign a treaty ensuring that this will no longer happen. In 2008, the TUC and Polish union organisations Solidarnosc and OPZZ signed a protocol to help Polish workers in the UK. A Polish language website was launched including guidance on worker’s rights. The following excerpt from a LibCom article shows a successful strike of Polish cleaners in Northampton in 2007.

“The mainly Polish workers employed by cleaning company Glenn Management to clean offices on the Moulton Park industrial estate, Northampton, had not been paid properly for around four months. However after only one day’s strike action they were paid the money that they were owed. One employee told Libcom: ‘We had been trying to get hold of our manager again and again but he was not interested in talking to us. Within half an hour of going on strike, however, he suddenly became very interested in what we had to say. First of all he told us that what we were doing was a disgrace and would endanger our jobs. When it became clear we would not be intimidated he tried to pay only those of us who spoke good English. When we made it clear that this wasn’t good enough we were all paid in full.’”

Capitalism and racism: divide and rule

As welcome and inspiring as this is, there is still a long way to go. The trade unions have barely touched the surface in terms of recruitment of Polish or any other immigrant workers in the UK. The TUC needs to take the lead in a campaign to unionise every worker – public, private, permanent, agency, indigenous or immigrant – and fight for recognition in every workplace. If this population could be recruited and brought into trade union activity it would be a crucial step forward for the labour movement.

In order to do this the trade unions need to be honest about the causes of such exploitation. Legislation against such employment abuses would be welcome, but would not solve the problem. The TUC needs to explain that this is an inherent symptom of capitalism; that none of this is needed; that there could be enough jobs for migrant and indigenous workers and they could be well paid. Trillions of pounds are hoarded or squandered in the name of profit. The labour movement must show that it is ready to fight for a system where the working people own and democratically control this wealth and can run the economy in their interest.

Whether it is legally through the already existing trade unions or through spontaneous illegal action (like Solidarnsoc 1980), workers will eventually organise. If the existing trade unions let them down they will eventually form new structures, which the 3 Cosas strike of Latin American cleaners at the University of London showed. Whether through the existing labour movement or through wildcat actions, the role of Marxists is to participate alongside workers in their struggle, whilst explaining the need for the revolutionary socialist transformation of society and building an organisation which can give movements clear ideas in the future.

Tensions are further fuelled with the use of reactionary, racist and slanderous media. The looming possible referendum on the EU gives the establishment and the right wing every opportunity to broadcast their reactionary bile at the expense of the nerves of the hard working EU migrants. Since 2007 there has been a reported 42 racially motivated attacks on Polish people throughout the UK, and this figure would increase considerably if those unreported were included. The British establishment may pay lip service against such hatred, but in reality they benefit from the exploitation and divisions. As has been shown with Black and Asian immigrant workers, the British ruling class is very willing to exploit their cheap labour whilst perpetuating racist and divisive ideologies.

Workers of all countries: unite!

As Liebknecht said, our many enemy is in our own country. The enemy of British workers is the British ruling class; the establishment. The ideas of British nationalism and chauvinism are completely opposed to the interests of British workers. So of course is the ideology of Scottish nationalism, which socialists in Scotland must fight to expose the bankruptcy of. Our only ideology is a proletarian ideology of internationalist class solidarity. An injury to one is an injury to all.

As the late twentieth century Trotskyist, Ted Grant, said “Not a wheel turns, not a lightbulb shines without the kind permission of the working classes”. We create the wealth. We run the world. The only problem is we don’t yet collectively realise it. We are living in a time of revolutionary upheavals worldwide. This will affect the UK and Poland and we have full confidence in the revolutionary potential of the Polish working classes, whether in Poland or here.

We encourage readers to read, question and if you agree, join us in fighting for a world devoid of oppression, devoid of totalitarianism, devoid of racism and false national divisions. Fight for a system where those who create the wealth, own and control it. This is no easy task, but as Rosa Luxemburg also said: “Socialism or barbarism” — there is no other option. We believe that socialism is possible, but not without your help.

Who are we

Revolution is the Scottish magazine of the International Marxist Tendency. The IMT is active in over 40 countries around the world, spreading the ideas of Marxism and building the forces of socialist revolution among workers and youth.

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

You can adjust all of your cookie settings by navigating the tabs on the left hand side.